Let Us Die to Make Men Free
by mermaid2bseeker
Summary: My effort to combine the ConanDoyle version with the Mofftiss version. Character Death  tempporarily, twice . I'm getting on the writing bandwagon once again. Need to practice, so i urge, please REVIEW, i need the critique


**The first story i've written in a long while. I am amazed by the entire Sherlock fandom. i lurk on the kink meme and finally i decided to start writing, no matter how bad it seemed to me as i'm writing it. you gotta walk before you can run, so here's my attempt at walking.**

**Summary:**My effort to combine ConanDoyle and Mofftiss

"Sherlock? You in?" John called as he placed the groceries on the kitchen counter. The flat was quiet, peaceful. He put away the perishables and puttered about making tea. When it was done he stepped into the living room and nearly scaled himself at seeing his flat mate asleep on the couch.

Except he wasn't asleep. He wasn't alive.

"Sherlock!" The tea fell, and John rushed over. Sherlock was cold, no pulse, his eyes clouded over. He'd been dead for hours. There was a spent needle on the floor, and a burnt spoon on the table. He'd taken cocaine, too much judging by the end result. John tried to find it in himself to be shocked, but truly he'd been expecting it. Sherlock had been in such a black moon theses past months. Finally, it seemed his friendship had no longer been enough.

John rested his head on his friend's still chest. "Goddamit!' He was going to need to call Mycroft, Lestrade, oh Mrs. Hudson. Arrangements would be made, Mycroft would see to that.

The chest under him rose. "Ah, you're home early."

He jumped back. "What. The. Hell." Sherlock laid there, healthy as ever, when not five minutes before he'd been dead as a dead thing

"Really, John? You need to work on your metaphors."

'I am so sorry. I'll get right on that, after you tell me what in the bloody buggering hell just happened."

He rose up from the couch, leaving John still crouched where he'd been. "One of the _perks_," he said this word with disdain, "of being _immortal_," again disdain.

"Immortal?"

"Well, nearly."

"Nearly?"

"I'm seeing a bit of confusion."

"A bit!"

"Do I need to provide a demonstration?"

John stood up, furious. Sherlock was definitely mocking him. "Demonstration? What do you call the overdose? A friendly trip down the rabbit hole?"

Sherlock opened the locked box on the desk and removed John's weapon. "John, even now you are convincing yourself that you were mistaken. It can't have been a fatal overdose, for I am standing right here. A negation of _post hoc ergo propter hoc_." He checked the clip, and chambered a round.

"Sherlock. . . Think about what you're doing." John approached him slowly. "You haven't come down yet. Just give me the gun;" voice soft so as not to spook.

He gave John a look so reminiscent of Mycroft's don't-be-difficult expression. "I know exactly what I am doing."

Before John could stop him, Sherlock turned the gun towards himself and pulled the trigger.

"JESUS!" John watched Sherlock drop to the ground. His mind was blank, refusing to comprehend this event.

He sank to the floor and crawled over to Sherlock's body, once again checking for vitals. With a shot like that, the shattered bones of his sternum would have pulverized his heart. There could be no mistake; the greatest mind John had ever known had just killed himself.

Sherlock opened his eyes and coughed. John skittered away but came back when Sherlock twisted to his side and continued hacking. It sounded like he was dislodging a lung; there was a plink and a bloody misshaped slug landed on the floor.

"How? What? No, how? Yes, I'm going to stick with How? You are capable of many things, but how are you capable of this?"

So Sherlock explained. There were lots of big important-sounding words. But the picture John got was that back in 1897 . . . _1897!_ . . . Sherlock had been experimenting, when it blew up in his face, literally. A few months later he's gone over a waterfall . . ._a waterfall!_ . . and woke up down the stream. It wasn't a singular experience either. He'd been shot, stabbed, poisoned, he'd overdosed and hung himself, but nothing seemed to stick. And so he'd lived through the decades watching the world grow smaller and new crimes get invented.

"Wait, so who's Mycroft?"

"My son." Sherlock waved a hand dismissively the surprise on John's face. "He keeps asking my for the experiment logs, but I've long since destroyed them. No one should have this problem.

The image of an immortal Mycroft ground John's thoughts to a halt.

"And then I met you again. My Watson, my Boswell, my blogger."

"Sorry? Again?"

"I couldn't believe it! The exact same circumstances, the exact same people. Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, Mike Stamford. I just knew you would be arriving in my life once again." Sherlock was so expressive, inching close to John. "When you walked in to Bart's, like all those years ago, an army doctor invalided home from Afghanistan, it was my second chance." The air was suddenly thick with possibility. "My chance to do what stupid Victorian morals would never allow. To fall in love with John Watson."

"You love me?" John asked faintly.

"For over a hundred years I've loved you."


End file.
